PRI win poses deadly bargain

Mexicans should heed the words of Benjamin Franklin. They're so rattled by drug violence that has caused the deaths of nearly 13,000 people that they're willing to trade freedom for security. So, Franklin would say, they don't deserve either.

And, frankly, it looks like they're no more deserving of democracy. The Mexican people have entered into a Faustian bargain with the disgraced Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which scored big victories in this month's midterm elections. The PRI promised “peace” and “security.” Those are code words for stopping the drug war started by President Felipe Calderón, who carries the banner of the rival National Action Party, or PAN.

Mexico's voters embraced the PRI's message. The party captured a plurality in the 500-member Chamber of Deputies and won five of six governorships by earning 36.7 percent of the vote. The PAN, which had controlled the legislative branch for nearly a decade, suffered heavy losses across the board with only 28 percent of the vote.

There were other factors. It didn't help the PAN's chances that the Mexican economy went sour or that fewer people are leaving for the United States and thus putting a greater strain on Mexico's job market. A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that the number of immigrants entering the United States from Mexico fell by 249,000 from March 2008 to March 2009, down nearly 60 percent from the previous year.

Still, polls show, the drug war was a big issue for voters. Now, halfway through a six-year term, Calderón must work with a hostile legislature that wants to cut funding for the crackdown. If that occurs, it will be even more essential that the United States stand by its commitments to Mexico. Through the Mérida Initiative, Congress has pledged $1.4 billion to help Calderón fight the drug lords. But the funds have been slow in arriving.

Yet, would a political party really seek common cause with ruthless drug traffickers just to save its own skin?

That's a no-brainer. This is the PRI we're talking about. Created in 1929, the party controlled the presidency for 71 years through corruption, violence and tyranny. The PAN's Vicente Fox broke that streak in 2000. When it lost to Calderón to 2006, the PRI seemed headed for the political dustbin.

Then came the drug war. After the Calderón administration arrested more than 60,000 drug suspects and either killed or captured many leaders of the organizations, the cartels responded with an orchestrated campaign of domestic terrorism. Innocent civilians were killed; on one occasion, a grenade was tossed into a crowd at a holiday celebration.

In the two and a half years since the war began, scores of police officers and soldiers have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered. In one recent and dramatic example, La Familia cartel – which fancies itself a Robin Hood-type organization that helps the poor in Calderón's home state of Michoacan – retaliated against the government's arrest of a key cartel member by killing 20 soldiers and police officers. The casualties included a dozen federal officers whose bodies were piled on a roadside.

The goal of the terror campaign was to frighten the Mexican people so they would withdraw support for Calderón. And that's what happened.

But it's what comes next that will decide Mexico's fate. Whether the PRI realizes it or not, it has painted itself into a corner. The cartels expect a change in policy that lets them get back to business. If the PRI complies, it could run afoul of that portion of the electorate that – while tired of the violence – doesn't want to give the country over to the drug lords either. That would only advance the perception of Mexico as a “failed state,” which would drive away business and foreign investment, and further batter the Mexican economy. That is all the more reason that the PRI should think carefully about its next move.

For his part, Calderón has only one option left – to press ahead with the anti-drug offensive. If the PRI gets in the way, he should portray it as an appeaser of the drug cartels.

Besides, the crackdown is working. Recently, a man claiming to be a leader of La Familia cartel called a television station and offered to work out a truce with the government. Calderón quickly rejected the offer.

It was the right decision. After all, everyone knows, you don't negotiate with terrorists.